financial

The 404 850: Where Jill will do anything for love (podcast)

Aunt Jill's been busy with her own podcast Jill On Money, but today she joins us on The 404 to answer your financial questions. Listen to this episode to find out what each of us did as teenagers to make money, how kids today can make the most of their time, and the best way to handle your monthly credit card debt. Plus, Jill helps us out with another Tang That Tune, now with a video and audio intro thanks to Patrick and Jamey!

The 404 Digest for Episode 850

Listen and subscribe to Aunt Jill's podcast, Jill on Money! Check out #AuntJill's Twitter, and send her your questions!

Episode 850 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Free accountancy

The General Ledger has been the basic bookkeeping tool of double-entry accounting since the Green Eyeshade days. It records financial transactions as both Credits and Debits in balance sheets, which before the advent of software were bound together in huge volumes like something out of a Dickens novel. BS1 General Ledger from Davis Business Systems brings the General Ledger up to cyberspeed with a variety of easy-to-use accounting tools that can track budgets and financial data and generate income statements, balance sheets, and other reports. It's freeware, a good start, accountancy-wise.

At just 1.44MB, BS1 is a fairly … Read more

Yahoo annual meeting marked by what wasn't said

Yahoo today held its annual shareholder meeting, and although the company touted its growth in some areas, it failed to discuss some of the hot-button issues on the minds of investors.

That was made clear by a shareholder who took aim at Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz during the meeting's question-and-answer session. The investor told Bartz that he wanted to discuss "the elephant in the room"--namely, recent rumors that Yahoo's board of directors is secretly considering replacing Bartz with another CEO.

Yahoo failed to discuss the rumor during the investors meeting, though chairman Roy Bostock said … Read more

Is Apple's declining stock cause for concern?

Apple's shares have been on the decline as of late, causing strong reactions from investors and pundits.

As of this writing, Apple's shares are trading at $314.65, down $5.61 on the day and more than $50 from the stock's 52-week high of $364.90. The company's stock decline has come at a time when the Dow Jones Industrial Average has also been slumping. In April, the Dow was above 12,810. As of this writing, it's at 12,072.25.

Earlier today, financial site SeekingAlpha dug into Apple's declining shares, saying that … Read more

Financial Times Web app skirts subscriptions fracas

The Financial Times has opted to put its resources into developing a Web app over a native software client to deliver written content to readers on tablets and other devices. The news comes two months after the publication said that it was negotiating with Apple over the terms of the tech giant's now four-month old subscription program.

The timing is of special interest given yesterday's announcement by Apple of "Newsstand," an app that's been built into its upcoming iOS 5 software for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad that will put newspapers and magazines into … Read more

HELOC calculator

Streamline Your Debt is a free tool that analyzes your home mortgage and shows you ways to reduce your payments or pay your loan off more quickly by using a Home Equity Line of Credit. While it's not the most intuitive tool we've used, its summaries offer useful data that can help guide your decisions.

We extracted the compressed download and clicked the executable file. Streamline Your Debt's simple interface opened with a tabbed Startup Wizard that let us enter home, HELOC, and income and expense data. We entered data for House Value, Loan Value, Interest Rate, … Read more

Sony sees profit this fiscal year, despite PSN breach

Although Sony had a rough time in its most recent fiscal year, the situation is apparently looking up for this year.

In the 12 months that will end March 31, 2012, Sony expects to generate revenue of 7.5 trillion yen ($90 billion, based on Sony's exchange forecast) and a profit of 80 billion yen ($963 million).

Sony's expectations of its performance stand in stark contrast to its most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31. The Japan-based company said today it lost nearly $3.2 billion in FY 2011 on revenue of nearly $88 billion.

Earlier this … Read more

TiVo revenue slides, but profit soars on Dish case

TiVo's revenue slid considerably in the quarter that ended April 30 while its profits scored huge gains, thanks to a recent patent settlement.

According to the DVR maker, it generated revenue in its fiscal first quarter of $45.7 million, down from the $61.3 million it tallied during the same period in 2010. However, unlike the 2010 quarter when it lost $14.2 million, TiVo secured a profit during its last-reported period of more than $139 million.

TiVo's financial performance was bolstered by its recent settlement with Dish Network and EchoStar. The companies announced earlier this month … Read more

Google algorithm tweak socks Demand Media traffic

Demand Media, which operates sites such as eHow and Livestrong, has been hit hard by Google's algorithm changes, the company revealed yesterday.

"In February and April, we experienced two major algorithm changes," Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt said during his company's first-quarter earnings call yesterday. "For eHow, here is the impact: as compared to the levels before the first February change, we saw a net decline in search engine referrals of 20 percent."

Google's algorithm update gives less weight in its results to so-called "content farms" that provide low-quality, quick answers … Read more